Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to tomography and 3D imaging, and more specifically to optical tomography for microscopy, cell cytometry, microplate array instrumentation, and other applications.
Overview of the Invention
Tomography refers to computational imaging by sections or sectioning via the use of any kind of penetrating wave, such as x-rays, gamma rays, radio-frequency waves, light, etc. as can be produced by electron-positron annihilation, electrons, ions, magnetic particles, light source, etc. Optical tomography is a form of computed tomography that creates a digital volumetric model of an object by reconstructing images made from light transmitted and scattered through an object. Optical tomography relies on the object under study being at least partially optically transparent. The present invention presents applications and opportunities in optical tomography which have remained largely unexplored and undeveloped. Light emitting diodes, or LEDs, have both light emitting and sensing properties. With the abundance of high and low performance LEDs at an economical price, leveraging the properties of LEDS, organic LEDs (OLEDs), etc., provides an important reason to consider such an invention. For example, OLEDs arrays are already in wide use in many types of electronic displays and they can be fabricated via printed electronics on a variety of surfaces such as glass, mylar, plastics, paper, etc. Leveraging some of the properties of such materials, LED arrays can be readily bent, printed on curved surfaces, etc. Such properties create vast opportunities for 3-D imaging in areas such as microscopy, cell cytometry, microplate array instrumentation, and other applications.